Here, There Be Miracles
by magickmaven
Summary: Deleted the original and hopefully this is not some ugly codified mess. Sorry about that. I'm copying and pasting since this was originally composed and published on my personal blog. Hope this works. Otherwise, you can find it at See Jeanette Write or AO3 This was requested by thewickedbohemian on tumblr.


Vince and Dave had produced the shroud. Gods only knew where they kept it. But it was the softest sheer, ivory silk that he'd encountered and embroidered in red silk threads with rosettes. Gloria had helped with the wrapping. She hadn't touched Jennifer's body; understanding Duke's need to leave her perfect. She was lifeless. And it was because of Mara. Or the Troubles. Or both. He'd tried to warn Audrey.

_The Troubles are dark and deep and they steal the people you love._

He'd been talking about Audrey and Nathan and the two of them as a couple. It hadn't occurred to him that it was Jennifer that would be taken from him. He was as guilty as Nathan in believing so deeply in her as to believe that while nothing could make her _choose_ to leave him, it never occurred to him something could kill her and _take_ her away from him.

Dwight had offered to come with him. Dwight had understood that he wanted to be alone for this. Those seconds before the sea claimed her and she disappeared beneath the waves were seconds that he somehow thought would be the last sacred moments of whatever was left of his life. Nathan had offered too. Dwight had been a little more sincere. Nathan was still too caught up in trying to get Mara to be Audrey again. Duke couldn't get it through to him that she'd never been Audrey Parker to begin with.

Jennifer though... He couldn't finish the thought. He cut the engine to the boat and flipped the switch to drop the anchor.

She was laying on the deck. Call him stupid but he'd grabbed a bunch of quilts and pillows to lay her on. She was worth more than simply being a dead body on his deck. The gold colored silk cords that Gloria had found and used to tie the shroud into place around her shone in the fading light of the sun setting in the west.

He sank to his knees beside her. Death hadn't changed her very much. Or, Gloria had done some kind of makeup job on her. He couldn't tell. Her skin was as pale as ever but hadn't taken on the waxy grey look of a corpse. Her lips were still red though. She looked like Snow White and the thought gave him a bitter shot of dark humor.

He was no Prince Charming. And this was no fucking fairy tale. She was dead and when he could manage it, Mara was too.

He bent and kissed her eyes. He would miss her eyes the most. Dark like molten chocolate until she stood just right in the light and then they would gleam a bright amber color. Her thick, curled lashes were so long that when she laid against him, she could actually tickle his chest just by blinking. He could tell she was upset with him by looking at her face. Looking into her eyes, he had been able to tell that she was in love with him.

He choked back the tears. Another reason not to let Dwight or Nathan be here. He could kill them. There was no knowing when the Harker Trouble could rear its ugly head inside him. He could barely grieve her because he could kill others.

"Jennifer... Sweetheart... I'm so sorry. I dragged you here, convinced you to stay... you were right. I did seduce you. Not for your supernatural connections. I just wanted you. You were brave and beautiful and sweet and I could see that you were falling for me too. I couldn't let you go. And I should have. You'd be alive. And safe. Maybe you would have waited for me there in Boston. Maybe I would have had to kick some guy's ass..."

That string of thought made him smile at the same time it poked another hole into his heart and this time he had a little more difficulty forcing back the tears.

"You were perfect. I don't know if you really knew that. And..."

And he didn't know what else to say, really. Except, "I love you. I will always love you."

He bent to kiss her brow, and then her mouth. And he couldn't stop the tears that fell onto her face through the silk. The wetness from the tears left a dark stain on the silk as they sank through and caused her skin to glisten in the sunlight.

He lifted her up and winced at the weight. Not that she was heavy. But that now her weight was a dead weight. The woman who had curled herself into his arms and body wasn't here any more. More tears splashed down onto her and he spared a second to hope that no one else out there was dying.

He had left the boarding plank partially out and stepped onto it. He could almost hear her giggle about walking the plank and a variety of other cliché pirate jokes she had alluded to or spoken outright. He looked down at her one last time before letting her go.

"Goodbye, Sweetheart. If there's an after life, I swear. I'll find you in it, okay? Wait for me there. The way things are goin'... I won't be long."

He let her go. The last splinters of his heart falling into the waves with her.

Jennifer dragged air into her lungs the way she had after that one time Melanie Conroy had accidentally pushed her out of the tree house and she'd fallen at least fifteen feet and had the breath knocked out of her and couldn't breathe for what felt like an hour thought it was only a few seconds. Only this was worse because she was pretty sure it was longer than an hour since all the breath had been sucked from her body.

She tried to move but couldn't and that was when she realized that she was in the water and she was bound and didn't know how she'd got there.

"DUKE!"

There was no one else she'd call for in this situation. Or much of any other situation.

She was going under.

"DUUUKKKEEE!"

"Jennifer?!"

That could not be her voice. She had been cold. She hadn't been breathing. She was going under. He yanked out his pocket knife and flipped it open as he grabbed a life saver ring and dived in after her, winding the rope to the life saver ring around his hand even as he swam toward her.

"Hang on, Sweetheart!"

He reached her never-soon-enough and hauled her against his chest, twisting to his back and readying his knife to cut her out of the shroud.

"Be still for me, okay? I've got you."

"Duke?"

"I got you, Sweetheart. I do. I'm here. And I'm never letting you go again."

He steadied his breathing. Sometimes, just sometimes - Haven got the miracle too.


End file.
